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Neo-Ba'athism

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Neo-Ba'athism is a far-left[1] distinct variant of Ba'athism that was formed as a result of the 1966 Syrian coup d'état led by Salah Jadid and Hafez al-Assad, which moved the Syrian Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party into a militarist organization that became independent of the National Command of the original Ba'ath Party. Neo-Ba'athism has been described as a divergence from Ba'athism proper that had gone beyond its pan-Arabist ideological basis by stressing the precedent of the military and purging the classical Ba'athist leadership of the old guard, including Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar.[2][3] The Neo-Ba'athist regime, which espoused radical left ideologies such as Marxism, abandoned Pan-Arabism, and sought to strengthen ties with the Soviet Union, came into conflict with Arab nationalists such as Nasserism and the Iraqi Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party.[4] Since their seizure of power in Syria, neo-Ba'athist officers purged traditional civilian elites to establish a military dictatorship operating in totalitarian lines.[5]

Neo-Ba'athism is primarily associated with Assadism, based on the policies of the successive governments of Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar al-Assad. This system was largely characterized by nepotism and sectarianism, with Hafez al-Assad's seizure of power in the 1970 Syrian coup d'état leading to the consolidation of Alawite minority dominance within the military and security forces.[6] State propaganda portrayed Assadism as a neo-Ba'athist current that evolved Ba'athist ideology with the needs of the modern era.[7] Neo-Ba'athism has been criticized by the founder of Ba'athist ideology, Michel Aflaq, for diverging from the original principles of Ba'athism.[8]

Ideology

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Neo-Ba'athism advocates the creation of a "vanguard" of leftist revolutionaries committed to build an egalitarian, socialist state in Syria and other Arab countries before making steps to achieve pan-Arab unity. The vanguard organisation is the Ba'ath party; which advocates class-struggle against the traditional Syrian economic elite classes; the big agriculturalists, industrialists, bourgeousie and feudal landlords. By the 1970s, 85% of agricultural lands were distributed to landless peasant populations and tenant farmers. Banks, oil companies, power production and 90% of large-scale industries were nationalised. The neo-Ba'athists led by Salah Jadid who came to power in 1966 concentrated on improving the Syrian economy and exporting the doctrines of class-conflict and militant socialist revolution to the neighbouring countries. This view was challenged by General Hafez al-Assad and his neo-Ba'ath faction; who were proponents of a military-centric approach and focused on a strategy of strengthening the Syrian military to defend the socialist government against imperialist forces and their alleged internal collaborators. Assad favoured reconciliation of various leftist factions and pursued better relations with other Arab states. Although majority of the party members favoured Salah, Hafez was able to gain the upperhand following the events of the 1970 coup dubbed the "Corrective Movement" in official Syrian Ba'ath history. Assad's victory also marked the supersedure of the military over the Ba'ath party structures; making the armed forces a central centre of political power.[9][10][11][12]

Stance on religion

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Neo-Ba'athism views religion as the "foremost symbol of reaction" preventing the birth of a modern socialist society, and advocate strict state supervision over religious activities for sustaining what its ideologues regard as a healthy, secularist society. During Salah Jadid's reign in power, the Ba'ath postured itself as a strongly anti-religious political entity; adhering to the Marxist–Leninist approach of top-down regimentation of the society through liquidation of what it regarded as "reactionary" classes such as the traditional ulema. The Grand Mufti's official status was downgraded by the Ba'athist government and the conventional role of religious clergy in state functioning was curtailed. While state ministers, officials, educators, etc. regularly preached about the "perils of religion"; party periodicals and magazines during the 1960s regularly made predictions about the "impending demise" of religion through the socialist revolution.[13]

During the rule of Salah Jadid, neo-Ba'athist ideologues openly denounced religion as a source of what they considered as the backwardness of the Arabs.[14] Following popular revulsion at Jadid's blatant anti-religious policies, Hafez al-Assad began to tone down the secularisation programme during the 1970s, by co-opting some pro-government clerics like Ramadan al-Bouti to counter the Islamic opposition and granted them a degree of autonomy from the regime. Simultaneously, the regime began the "nationalization" of religious discourse through a loyal clerical network, and condemned anyone deviating from the state-promoted "Ba'thist version of Islam" as a threat to the society.[15] The state-sponsored religious discourse during the rule of Hafez al-Assad promoted a left-wing nationalist worldview that sought to anathematize Islamists and re-inforce loyalty towards the Alawite president.[16]

Criticism

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Salah al-Din al-Bitar, a member of the classical Ba'athist leadership, stated that the 1966 Syrian coup d'état "marked the end of Ba'athist politics in Syria". Ba'ath party founder Michel Aflaq shared the sentiment by stating, "I no longer recognise my party!"[8]

According to Jamal al-Atassi, co-founder of the Arab Ba'ath Party, stated that "Assadism is a false nationalism. It's the domination of a minority, and I'm not talking just of the Alawites, who control the society's nervous system. I include also the army and the mukhabarat. [...] And despite its socialist slogans, the state is run by a class who has made a fortune without contributing—a nouvelle bourgeoisie parasitaire."[17]

President of the United Arab Republic, Gamal Abdel Nasser, accused the neo-Ba'athists of Syria of anti-religion and sectarianism.[18]

History

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Military Committee members Salim Hatum (left), Muhammad Umran (center) and Salah Jadid (right) celebrating after the 1963 coup d'état

Neo-Ba'athism took power in Syria following the 1966 Syrian coup d'état. After the 1967 Six-Day War, tensions between Salah Jadid and Hafez al-Assad increased, and al-Assad and his associates were strengthened by their hold on the military. In late 1968,[19] they began dismantling Jadid's support network, facing ineffectual resistance from the civilian branch of the party that remained under Jadid's control.[20] This duality of power persisted until the Corrective Revolution of November 1970, when al-Assad ousted and imprisoned Atassi and Jadid.[21] He then set upon a project of rapid institution-building, reopened parliament and adopted a permanent constitution for the country, which had been ruled by military fiat and a provisional constitutional documents since 1963.[21] Assad significantly modified his predecessor's radical socialist economic policies, encouraged several wealthy urban families to increase their activities in the private sector, and allowed limited foreign investment from Arab countries in the Persian Gulf region States.[22]

Hafez Al-Assad's reign was marked by the virtual abandonment of Pan-Arab ideology; replacing it with the doctrine of socialist transformation and giving overriding priority in constructing socialist society within Syria.[23] Political participation was limited to the National Progressive Front, the ruling coalition of Syrian Baath and Marxist–Leninist parties; entrenching itself firmly within the Soviet Bloc. The Party also began building a personality cult around Assad and brought the elite of the armed forces under Assad's grip and the officer corps were installed with Alawite loyalists; further alienating the Sunni majority from the party.[24]

Photo of Syrian military general Hafez al-Assad during the 1970 coup

By the late 1970s, the state apparatus of the neo-Ba'athist regime under Assad had consolidated into an anti-Sunni orientation. Official propaganda incited Alawite farmers against rich Sunni landowners and regularly disseminated stereotypes of Sunni merchants and industrialists, casting them as enemies of nationalization and socialist revolution. Bitterness towards the Assadist regime and the Alawite elite in the neo-Ba'ath and armed forces became widespread amongst the Sunni majority, laying the beginnings of an Islamic resistance. Prominent leaders of Muslim Brotherhood like Issam al-Attar were imprisoned and exiled. A coalition of the traditional Syrian Sunni ulema, Muslim Brotherhood revolutionaries and Islamist activists formed the Syrian Islamic Front in 1980 with objective of overthrowing Assad through Jihad and establishing an Islamic state. In the same year, Hafez officially supported Iran in its war with Iraq and controversially began importing Iranian fighters and terror groups into Lebanon and Syria. This led to rising social tensions within the country which eventually became a full-fledged Islamist rebellion in 1982; led by the Islamic Front. The regime responded by slaughtering the Sunni inhabitants in Hama and Aleppo and bombarding numerous mosques, killing around 20,000–40,000 civilians. The uprising was brutally crushed and Assad regarded the Muslim Brethren as demolished.[25]

Syria under Hafez al-Assad was a staunch Soviet ally and firmly aligned itself with Soviet Bloc during the height of the Cold War. Soviet Union saw Syria as the lynchpin of its Middle-East strategy and signed the Treaty of Friendship and Co-operation in 1980; directly committing itself to Syria's defense and incorporating the Syrian armed forces into Soviet standards. For his part, Hafez committed himself to socialist economic and foreign policies; and was one of the few autocrats to openly support the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The end of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union dealt a deep blow to Assad, who retained the nostalgia for the old order.[26][27] Assad continued to rule Syria until his death in 2000, by centralizing powers in the state presidency.[28]

The government of Ba'athist Syria, the last country controlled by neo-Ba'athists, was overthrown in December 2024 after a series of offensives by the Syrian opposition.

References

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  1. ^
    • Cavoški, Jovan (2022). Non-Aligned Movement Summits: A History. UK: Bloomsburry. p. 101. ISBN 978-1-3500-3209-5. Syria, headed by the radical leftist Baath Party overtly challenged Nasser's leadership credentials by highlighting his diminished revolutionary spirit.
    • I. Dawisha, Adeed (1980). "3: External and Internal Setting". Syria and the Lebanese Crisis. London, UK: Macmillan Press Ltd. p. 45. ISBN 978-1-349-05373-5. The change has been particularly marked under Asad. He has created a fairly popular Presidential regime: radical left, the most advanced socialist regime in the Arab world, it is progressively widening the frame to include more peasants and labourers.
    • The Israel Economist. Vol. 26–27. University of Minnesota: Kollek & Son, Limited. 1970. p. 61. The ideology propounded by the Ba'ath changed completely. The accent on Arab nationalism was discarded as was moderate socialism. Their place was taken by Syrian nationalism and extreme left-wing ideas verging on communism.
    • Abadi, Jacob (2004). Israel's Quest for Recognition and Acceptance in Asia: Garrison State Diplomacy. London, UK: Frank Class Publishers. p. 22. ISBN 0-7146-5576-7. radical left-wing Ba'ath party in Syria.
    • S. Abu Jaber, Kamel (1966). The Arab Ba'th Socialist Party: History, Ideology and Organization. Syracuse, New York, USA: Syracuse University Press. pp. xii–xiii, 33–47, 75–97. LCCN 66-25181. The leadership now in control of Syria does not represent the gamut of the Ba'th party. It is composed mainly of extreme leftists vesting almost exclusive authority in the military wing of the party.
    • Hopwood, Derek (2013). Syria 1945–1986: Politics and Society. Routledge. pp. 45–46, 73–75, 90. doi:10.4324/9781315818955. ISBN 9781317818427. The period 1963 to 1970 when Asad finally succeeded was marked ideologically by uncertainty and even turbulence. It was a period of transition from the old nationalist politicians to the radical socialist Baathis ... struggle between 'moderates' and radicals was centred on the dispute whether to impose a radical left wing government and a social revolution on Syria or to follow a more moderate Arab unionist course which would possibly appease opponents of the Baath. The radicals largely held the upper hand and worked to strengthen the control of the party over the state.
    • Phillips, Christopher (2020). The Battle for Syria: International Rivalry in the New Middle East. London, UK: Yale University Press. p. 11. ISBN 978-0-300-21717-9. In 1963 ... the socialist Ba'ath Party, seized power. The radical left wing of the party then launched an internal coup in 1966, initiating accelerated land reform
    • Mikhaĭlovich Vasil'ev, Alekseĭ (1993). Russian Policy in the Middle East: From Messianism to Pragmatism. University of Michigan, USA: Ithaca Press. pp. 63, 76. ISBN 978-0863721687. Syrian Baathist version of Arab nationalism and socialism offered plenty of points of contact with Soviet policy ... when the left-wing Baathist faction led by Nureddin Atasi came to power, accelerated Syria's rapprochement with the Soviet Union ... for the USSR Syria remained an uneasy ally whose actions were beyond control, often unpredictable and the cause of complications. The ultra-leftist slogans originating from Damascus (such as a 'people's war') were not received enthusiastically in Moscow. Mustafa Tlas, the new Syrian chief of staff, was a theoretician of guerrilla warfare and had even translated works by Che Guevara who was not particularly popular among the Soviet leaders.
    • Climent, James (2015). World Terrorism: An Encyclopedia of Political Violence from Ancient Times to the Post-9/11 Era (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. p. 383. ISBN 978-0-7656-8284-0. influence of different views, came from the more radical left-wing nationalist groups. These groups included ... Syria's Ba'ath party which seized power in Damascus in 1963
  2. ^ Ben-Tzur, Avraham (1968-07-01). "The Neo-Ba'th Party of Syria". Journal of Contemporary History. 3 (3): 161–181. doi:10.1177/002200946800300310. ISSN 0022-0094.
  3. ^ Galvani, John (1974). "Syria and the Baath Party". MERIP Reports (25): 3–16. doi:10.2307/3011567. ISSN 0047-7265.
  4. ^ Mann, Joseph (2007-01-01). "The Conflict with Israel According to Neo-Ba'ath Doctrine". Israel Affairs. doi:10.1080/13537120601063358.
  5. ^ Meininghaus, Esther (2016). "Introduction". Creating Consent in Ba'thist Syria: Women and Welfare in a Totalitarian State. I. B. Tauris. pp. 1–33. ISBN 978-1-78453-115-7.
  6. ^ Korany, Bahgat; Dessouki, Ali (2010-07-15), The Foreign Policies of Arab States: The Challenge of Globalization, American University in Cairo Press, pp. 423–424, ISBN 978-977-416-360-9
  7. ^ Dam, Nikolaos van (2011). 10: Conclusions: The struggle for power in Syria: politics and society under Asad and the Ba'th Party (4 ed.). London: I. B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84885-760-5.
  8. ^ a b Pipes, Daniel (1992). Greater Syria: the history of an ambition. Oxford University paperback. New York: Oxford Univ. Pr. p. 158. ISBN 978-0-19-506022-5.
  9. ^ Roberts, David (2015). "13: Conclusions". The Ba'ath and the creation of modern Syria (Routledge Library Editions: Syria ed.). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. pp. 136–139. ISBN 978-0-415-83882-5.
  10. ^ Walt, Stephen (1987). "3:From the Baghdad Pact to the Six Day War". The Origins of Alliances. Cornell University Press. pp. 87–88. ISBN 978-0-8014-9418-5.
  11. ^ F. Devlin, John (1976). "16: Military Ascendancy in Syria". The Baath Party: A History From its Origins to 1966. Stanford University, California: Hoover Institution Press. pp. 281–307. ISBN 978-0817965617.
  12. ^ Galvani, John (February 1974). "Syria and the Baath Party". MERIP Reports (25): 3, 7–10. doi:10.2307/3011567. JSTOR 3011567. Archived from the original on 4 November 2022. Retrieved 4 November 2022.
  13. ^ Pierret, Thomas (2013). "4: The State Management of religion in Syria". In Heydemann, Steven; Leenders, Reinoud (eds.). Middle East Authoritarianisms: Governance, Contestation and regime resilience in Syria and Iran. Stanford, California, USA: Stanford University Press. pp. 86–89. ISBN 978-0-8047-8301-9.
  14. ^ "Bashar's Syria: The Regime and its Strategic Worldview" (PDF). pp. 364–365. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 July 2011. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
  15. ^ Pierret, Thomas (2013). "4: The State Management of Religion in Syria". In Heydemann, Steven; Leenders, Reinoud (eds.). Middle East Authoritarianisms: Governance, Contestation and regime resilience in Syria and Iran. Stanford, California, USA: Stanford University Press. pp. 89–94. ISBN 978-0-8047-8301-9.
  16. ^ "Bashar's Syria: The Regime and its Strategic Worldview" (PDF). p. 366. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 July 2011. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
  17. ^ Viorst, Milton (1994). Sandcastles: the Arabs in search of the modern world. Syracuse University Press. p. 146. ISBN 978-0224033237.
  18. ^ S. Abu Jaber, Kamel (1966). The Arab Ba'th Socialist Party: History, Ideology and Organization (1st ed.). Syracuse, New York, USA: Syracuse University Press. pp. xii–xiii, 76–78, 93–95. LCCN 66-25181.
  19. ^ Seale 1990, p. 142.
  20. ^ Seale 1990, pp. 149–150.
  21. ^ a b Federal Research Division 2004, p. 213.
  22. ^ "Syria Between Two Transitions". MERIP. 15 June 1997. Archived from the original on 4 March 2021. Retrieved 23 February 2021.
  23. ^ Pipes, Daniel (1996). Syria Beyond the Peace Process. Daniel Pipes. p. 5. ISBN 978-0-944029-64-0.
  24. ^ Roberts, David (2015). The Ba'ath and the creation of modern Syria (Routledge Library Editions: Syria ed.). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. pp. 53, 106–108. ISBN 978-0-415-83882-5.
  25. ^ Roberts, David (2015). "12: Hafiz al-Asad - II". The Ba'ath and the creation of modern Syria (Routledge Library Editions: Syria ed.). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. pp. 114–117, 119–121. ISBN 978-0-415-83882-5.
  26. ^ Pipes, Daniel (1995). "1: Assad's Post-Soviet Predicament". Syria Beyond the Peace Process. Washington Institute for Near East Policy. pp. 6–8. ISBN 0-944029-64-7.
  27. ^ Rezaei, Farhad (2019). "3: Iran and Russia: Completing the Pivot to the East?". Iran's Foreign Policy After the Nuclear Agreement. Middle East Today. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 62. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-76789-5. ISBN 978-3-319-76788-8. S2CID 158854597.
  28. ^ Bar 2006, p. 362.